Month: May 2018

Today I wanted to give a quick share of a great recipe for kale pesto pizza and help you overcome its one flaw: it isn’t clear how much kale to use. the recipe is found at: https://cookieandkate.com/2016/kale-pesto-pizza-recipe/

As shown below, I made the pesto last night.

Unfortunately, the recipe says “3 cups packed kale.” I could lightly pack it, and not get enough, or I could really pack it and get 3 times as much. The correct level of packing is probably somewhere in the middle, but I decided that you needed a picture of how much greens I used.

As you can see I also used Spinach. This turned out to be about the right amount of greens, but maybe a little bit excessive.

I’ve made this pesto a few times. The pizza is phenomenal. The pesto was not bad with pasta, but I was disappointed remembering how good the pizza was.

For dinner a little while ago my wife and I made Lentil Joes with homemade BBQ sauce. This is a delicious meal that is fairly easy to cook, cheap, and makes getting some vegetables into dinner easy. It will take around an hour if you make the lentils. I don’t know if I’ve seen canned lentils, but you could use other beans and it would probably still work well. For meat eaters, using half ground beef and half lentils is a great way to save money and add some nutritional variety.

The pictures unfortunately are from more recently. We tried it again and added quinoa. Bonnie really liked it; I could take it or leave it.

I expect this is enough to feed 5-8 adults. Other commentary is below the recipe.

Note: If too thin, you can add a little bit of cornstarch dissolved in cold water. Our lentils were ended up with extra water and we needed to thicken it a little bit, so we did.

Instructions:

Sauté the onions and vegetables in the oil, and add the salt and garlic as they are sautéing. When they are sautéed to taste, add the lentils, veggie broth, and sauces. We added the tomato sauce because it was left over (and we did not measure). We don’t think it really mattered, and would be comfortable omitting it.

Mix well and simmer for at least a minute. Serve on toast

*I did not measure, but I polished off a nearly gone bag of peas and added around ½ cup or more of frozen spinach. The vegetables did not seem to affect the taste. I wanted to add grated carrots, but we were out of carrots. The amount of 1 cup is arbitrary and reflects somewhere close to what I did, but I would have done more if we had carrots.

**I cooked about 2 ½ cups, but I saved what was supposed to be about 1 cup dry for another meal. I think I used the equivalent of 2 ½ to 3 cans of beans. Instructions to cook lentils should be on the lentil bag, and they’re easier and much faster than most beans.

***We had a small amount of tomato sauce left from making barbecue sauce. I don’t think it is actually necessary.

Ours came out wetter than we would have liked, so we simmered for a while and it got better. I still expect the consistency will be a little more sandwichable as leftovers.

It’s enough like Sloppy Joes to satisfy me, and definitely delicious. Just like in this recipe, I don’t usually do meat imitations, and although I’m new to vegan eating, I found I hardly thought about the fact that it didn’t have meat. We made a very large batch, so if needed, cut it in half. We weren’t close to throwing any away between my wife and I and our two-year-old boy.

I alluded to this above, but if you don’t want to or don’t have time to cook beans, you can try canned beans, but I haven’t seen canned lentils or tried other beans. Lentils are much faster than larger beans to cook from a dry bag of beans, taking only about 45 minutes. If you try with canned beans, be sure to leave a comment and let us know how it went. I expect it will work well if you use a smaller bean such as a black bean.

I will consider doubling the garlic when I make it again. With Bonnie’s homemade BBQ sauce (recipe here) it was flavorful, but more garlic might have kicked it up a notch. Bonnie made the BBQ sauce by taste more than by exact measuring, and it came out great.

Combine the butter and sugar in a large mixing bowl, and beat on medium speed until light and fluffy. Add the egg and vanilla, and beat until well incorporated.

Meanwhile, whisk together the flour, cocoa, baking powder, and salt. Gradually add the dry mixture to the creamed mixture, beating on the lowest speed. Continue to mix on the lowest setting until the dry ingredients are just incorporated.

Divide the dough in half, and shape into two discs. Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 1 hour.

When the dough is chilled, preheat the oven to 350°F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or a baking mat. Set aside.

Roll the dough to 1/8 – 1/4-inch thickness. Use a cookie cutter (approximately 2 inches in diameter) to cut out cookies and transfer them to the prepared baking sheet. I used the wide end of a large frosting tip to cut out these teeny ones.

Bake the cookies for 12 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

Once the cookies are cooled, prepare the filling. Combine the softened butter, half and half, vanilla, and salt and beat until combined. The mixture may be a bit lumpy, but will come together. Add the powdered sugar gradually, approximately 1/3 cup at a time, until the filling comes together. It will be slightly stiffer than a cupcake frosting. Try not to snitch too much of it, so you can save it for the cookies!

Transfer the filling to a piping bag fitted with a large round tip. Pipe the filling onto half of the cookies, and top with the remaining cookies to form cookie sandwiches.

The cookies are best chilled, but there’s no wrong way to eat these. Eating them straight out of the freezer is wonderful and keeps them good for longer than they’ve ever lasted at my house.

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About Me

I'm Bonnie, a newlywed stretching our finances through crafting. This is a blog about my crafts, cooking, and works of art, like sculpting, collage, or painting. I crochet, do macrame, bake/ cook food (though I prefer desserts!) and make candy, as well as sew, weave, and anything else I can get my hands on.